2010
08.14

So you are moving to Canada. Congratulations! Whether you are coming to Canada to go to school, for work or to be close to family, there is a lot to learn about living in Canada. Check out this great Foreigners guide to renting an apartment in Canada.

When you are looking for a place to live in Canada, there are a number of different ways to find apartment listings. In larger cities such as Calgary, Edmonton, Winnipeg and Vancouver, you will find listings in the local newspaper. The listings will be broken down into subgroups such as one bedroom, two bedroom, three bedroom or more. You can sometimes find duplexes to rent, and maybe even a condominium.

You might also try looking for an apartment through the help of the university or college student housing board. While you are at the grocery store or laundromat, check out the posted rental apartment listings there. Some cities even have an online rental housing listing. Take a look and see what you can find.

First you need to decide how many will be sharing the apartment. Your landlord will demand the names of all the people who will be living there, so be prepared to provide that information when you go see an apartment. There are limits as to how many people can live in a rental property, depending on the number of bedrooms. Find out what the limitations are in your community.

You will also need to determine what you can personally afford for your rent. When you are looking for an apartment, look at the amount that is listed as the rent. If it is unusually lower than the rest of the advertisements, it is probably because the heat and hydro costs are not included in the rent. As much as possible, try to find a place that includes heat and hydro in your rent.

When you are new to Canada, it can be difficult to find a place to rent. This is not because of your background, but because some landlords are concerned about being paid. With no background information on you, they may be reluctant to rent to you. Most landlords will run a credit check on you before they rent, so having a good credit history, wherever you may be from, can be very important. Alternately, it is important to have someone who has a good credit history, (a parent, sibling or cousin) available to co-sign for your lease. This will remove any concerns for your prospective landlord and should grease the wheels in your ability to get a good rental property.

Always ask, when looking for an apartment such as Calgary apartments as well as Hamilton apartments, what appliances are included on the property. Most will include a refrigerator or stove, most of the times both. Some may include a washing machine for your clothes and a clothes dryer. Some apartment buildings have a laundry room where tenants can wash their clothes on the premises. In smaller buildings and duplexes you may have to walk or drive to the closest laundromat to do your laundry.

Once you are approved to rent the apartment, you will need to pay the landlord a security deposit equivalent to one month’s rent. This is in addition to your first month’s rent. The deposit is held by the landlord until the end of your lease, at which time it is applied to your last month of rent.

When living in Toronto finding apartments for rent in Winnipeg that are right for you can be difficult. Viewit can help you with your search for an apartment in Winnipeg as well as apartments for rent in edmonton.

2010
08.14

If you are out looking for an apartment in Winnipeg, Edmonton, Vancouver, or Calgary, one of your biggest worries is going to be if the apartment is going to be big enough. You will also want to live in a good and clean neighborhood that is affordable. In the rest of this article are tips to help decide if apartment is big enough for you and your family to move into and live in.

The living room is usually the first room that you will enter when you come into the apartment. How large are you expecting it to be? Do you need a lot of space to entertain and to spend most of your time in? What about how much furniture you plan on putting in this room? Can you make it fit? Do you have enough furniture to make it fit into the room provided?

From the living room, there is the kitchen. The largest part of the kitchen that many people notice are the counter tops. Do you need a lot of room to make your daily meals? How large is your microwave? What about a dishwasher? Some apartments do not supply these things. Are you okay with this, or can you supply your own? Is there enough room to supply your own? Is there enough room for multiple people to be in the kitchen at the same time comfortably?

Sometimes, off to the side of the kitchen there will be a dining room. Sometimes, it is big enough for a full sit down family dinner table, and other times it is only big enough for a two person breakfast table that you can barely squeeze in there. Or, it can just be an extension of the living room. Do you have the kind of furniture needed to fill the space or do you have too much?

Now, a bathroom is a bathroom unless you have several people in your household. How many bathrooms do you need in one apartment? Is one full bathroom going to be enough to suit your needs, or is an additional half bath or full bath going to be needed? If several people are going to be sharing the bathroom in the morning, is there enough room for there to be more than one person to be in the same room at the same time?

Next, we move onto the bedrooms. If it is just yourself, do you really need a second bedroom? Maybe you need an office to keep all of those bills organized or maybe you are in school. If you have children, additional rooms are a must. If you are going to be spending a lot of time in the bedrooms, then yes, a larger room is necessary.

When you move into an apartment, sometimes you have to sacrifice space, but just how much space? Do you really want to have to pay for a storage unit on top of your rent? See if the apartment offers extra storage space such as a basement, garage, or attic space. Many apartments will offer large walk-in closets that can hold your belongings.

Whether that you are looking for Edmonton apartments or apartments in the area of Winnipeg, Vancouver,or Calgary as well as Surrey apartments, space will probably be one of the biggest concerns in your final decision. A safe and clean neighborhood should be up there too. These tips should help you on your way to making the right decision when choosing your apartment.

When living in Toronto finding apartments for rent in Winnipeg that are right for you can be difficult. Viewit can help you with your search for apartments in Winnipeg as well as Montreal apartments.

2010
08.14

If this is the first time that you are renting an apartment in Canada, there is a lot of information that you need to know before you start your search. How many bedrooms do you need? Are heat and electricity included in your rent? The following is your Canadian apartment hunting guide.

The first thing you need to know when looking for an apartment is how much you can afford to pay. While you might think that price is everything, it really is not. Always take other things into consideration. Things like distance from work or school, parking, the availability of public transportation and proximity to stores, malls and other amenities.

Start with looking through the housing advertisements in your local newspaper. You will typically find an advertisement that says something like 2 BR, heat, hydro, inc. Unfurnished and then a location and a price. You can also find apartment rental listings online as well as in places like the local grocery store or laundromat.

Call about up to six apartments at one time. Ask important questions. Find out if your electricity is included in your rent. Ask about the heating as well, as this expense can be costly especially in winter. Find out what kind of heat the apartment has. Electric heat will be more expensive than natural gas heating, however, if your electricity is paid for with your rent, then you really do not have to worry about it when it is forty below zero.

Most one, two and three or more bedroom apartments include a stove and refrigerator. Some also include a washing machine and dryer. Ask about these so that you know what you will need to purchase for your comfort and ease.

For someone just starting out, a bachelor pad can be a good solution to the perpetual problem of no furniture. Many of these apartments are furnished with basics like a dresser, bed, and sometimes a desk and lamp for a place that caters to students. Most bachelor apartments will not allow cooking in the private room, and may have a common cooking area as well as shared bathrooms. Get the full scoop when you call about these kinds of spaces.

When you sign a rental agreement, several things will happen. Firstly, your new landlord will probably ask you for a security deposit to hold your apartment for you. This deposit, the same amount as your monthly rent, is used as a way to make the landlord feel secure in renting the place to you. The deposit is held for the duration of your rental, and used toward your last month’s rent. At the time that your agreement is up, you can use your deposit to pay your last month’s rent and ask your landlord for the interest that he has earned on it.

For those new to renting, the landlord will insist that you have a co-signor to guarantee that they will be paid should you fail to pay your rent for example when people are renting Calgary apartments or Kitchener apartments. This co-signor is usually someone like your father or mother, someone with a good credit history. If you have been paying your own credit cards for more than a year, chances are the landlord will take you on. Once you have rented several times and had good references from previous landlords, you will not need a co-signor any longer. Then you will be on your way to independence!

When living in Toronto finding apartments for rent in Edmonton that are right for you can be difficult. Viewit can help you with your search for an apartment in Edmonton as well as Halifax apartments.